


a mensa et thoro

by imperialhuxness



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alien Culture, Bickering, Body Worship, Getting Back Together, Hand & Finger Kink, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Mission Fic, Mutual Masturbation, Pining, Politics, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, well sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:27:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21796087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imperialhuxness/pseuds/imperialhuxness
Summary: Kylo expects three things out of the diplomatic mission to Ryloth: a new ore tribute, the Dark's distinctive brand of calm, and Hux's total indifference.He gets none of them.--Hux huffs a small exhale, hot on Kylo’s chin. “I’d quite forgotten you were afraid of ghosts."
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 30
Kudos: 176





	a mensa et thoro

**Author's Note:**

> This story draws on some elements from _Resistance Reborn_ , but no familiarity is required to understand the fic. (More on that in the end notes!)

Kylo didn’t expect the Rylothians to cave easily. 

The planet’s Twi’leks are a proud, independent people, pacifistic on interplanetary affairs, but fierce when provoked on their home turf. With their famous neutrality, though, and resultant poor defenses, they’re a softer target than most--and almost worth turning for symbolic value alone, never mind the tribute revenue.

With any other species, Kylo would have simply sent a strongly worded missive, but Leia Organa’s son once knew enough about Twi’lek stubbornness to recognize that wouldn’t have been good enough. 

No one in the galaxy would dare refuse a short-notice visit request from the minds behind Starkiller, and besides, the Rylothians’ particular tradition of hospitality would never let them.

Now, two hours after touchdown in the capital, Lessu, Kylo’s growing impatient.

“Chancellor,” Hux is saying for the fifth time, “this isn’t a question of ideals.”

In the heart of the Chancellor’s palace, he’s pressed next to Kylo on a piece of furniture that would on some worlds be called a loveseat. In a rare act of un-self-consciousness, he has his legs crossed; his foot bounces dangerously near to Kylo’s shin. 

It’s a frustrated tic: over locally grown tea and token hors d'oeuvres, little progress has been made.

Hux swings his left leg over his right, pointing his foot away from Kylo, before continuing:

“Rather, it’s simple arithmetic. Either you pay the required tribute and retain ninety percent of your commercial revenue, or you do not, and retain none of it once the Order’s blockade goes into effect.”

Since the New Republic’s lauded ouster of the Order-backed Rinnrivin syndicate nearly seven years ago, Ryloth has been generating trillions of credits annually off of the planet’s sole non-sentient resource,  _ ryll  _ ore. Credits that the Order now desperately needs a portion of.

With half the fleet disintegrated and funds short, Hux had agreed it would be nothing shy of  _ irresponsible _ not to exploit them.

Or attempt it, at least. 

Aggravated, Kylo swirls his tea, dislodging the dried petals clinging to the sides of the glass. Black and violet, they slowly bruise the water, the resulting aroma rich, sweet, almost cloying. Kylo’s been sipping at it politely since the steam began to dissipate. 

Hux, however, took one swallow and set his own glass aside. Hopefully the Twi’leks won’t have noticed. It isn’t quite worth the effort of probing their minds.

Drelomon, the Rylothian chancellor, reaches for the kettle to refill his cup. “I fail to see what Ryloth stands to gain from this arrangement. You claim to offer a diplomatic proposition, yet all I perceive is an open threat to our economy.”

“Chancellor,” Hux repeats, and there’s a spark in his gaze, his voice. He enjoys this--the debate, the  _ parrying.  _ Always has. “Your tribute will purchase Ryloth’s security. The First Order ensures physical and economic protection for all worlds willing to support it financially.”

The rest hangs in the air, unsaid:  _ And ruin for those that do not _ . 

“Ryloth declined to join the Republic, whose grip was far lighter than yours.” Drelomon blows steam off his tea. “We do not seek membership.”

Kylo knows this. Ben knew it better, once, just as he knew it would be better to come here in the first place. Ben is gone, but not all of the history he learned has been overwritten by the Darkness.

“Which is why we aren’t offering membership.” Kylo holds the chancellor’s gaze, inflecting just enough Force to open his mind, but not enough to change it. The Order needs willing subjects, not one-time puppets. 

“A free Ryloth, as you think of it, is a thing of the past. But the First Order offers the next-best option: autonomy under a central government that has the power to enforce its legislation. Shore up that government and benefit, or be left behind.”

“Neither does Ryloth seek submission,” puts in one of the Twi’lek advisors, aspirating on the last word as if it pains her.

“This is not submission,” Hux lies easily. His gaze strays to Kylo’s face for a moment longer than it ought. “As Supreme Leader Ren explained, we offer a mutually beneficial partnership.”

“In which you hold every card.” The advisor’s stare is flinty, her speckled headtails rigid with anger.

“Then how much more generous that we offer at all.” Hux’s smile is the same thin, tight line Kylo’s had to become used to since things fell apart. It’s almost worse than a scowl.

Drelomon’s expression shutters, but his shape in the Force grows cold--like he’s walling off fury, desperation, anxiety, and squaring with the truth. Or at least starting to. When he speaks again, his tone is subdued, if not broken.

“When would this proposed blockade begin?”

“We can give you no more than five days.” Kylo sets down his teacup in favor of one of the leaf-rolled dried fruits lining a tray at the center of the table. 

“Very well,” Drelomon replies. “That should give the business council long enough to weigh our options.” 

_ What options?  _ Kylo manages not to scoff. His peripheral vision catches Hux’s smirk--the tight line, tugging at the corner of his lips. 

“And,” the chancellor continues, “we appreciate this reprieve on the most sacred night of our solar cycle.”

_ The Longest Night _ , Kylo knows. When all three of Ryloth’s moons are at their dimmest. When ghosts roam. Allegedly.

Kylo swallows a sweet, sticky bite of fruit. “We in turn appreciate your hospitality despite the holiday.”

Drelomon dips his head. “We would offer no less to a potential ally.”

Hux shifts slightly at  _ ally _ , the smallest tensing of his body language betraying his annoyance to Kylo. To Kylo only.

“Thank you indeed,” he says aloud, with a gracious air that’s  _ this much  _ theatrical. As he unstacks his left leg from his right, clearly making to plant both feet on the ground, his thigh brushes Kylo’s.

Which is completely fine.

_ (Never mind that a year ago it wouldn’t have been an accident, never mind that a year ago he wouldn’t have immediately flinched away, never mind--) _

Warmth, though, still involuntarily radiates through Kylo’s bloodstream at the contact, like a Hux-shaped neural pathway he’ll never be able to close.

He needs to. 

Fuck. 

He needs-- 

To focus. Channel his thoughts back to the present--to what  _ matters _ , what he can  _ actually do  _ something about.  _ Be mindful _ , every master has chided him.  _ Do not get lost within yourself. _

Kylo clears his throat, stands. “May the spirits of your ancestors grant you discretion.”

“And what would a Sith know of that?” the advisor returns, with the quiet rage of a snowstorm.

Kylo doesn’t bother correcting her.

* * *

Hux’s first unconditional approval of any of Kylo’s orders as Supreme Leader was to come to Ryloth by shuttle, leaving the  _ Finalizer  _ a system away. 

Kylo was shocked he agreed to it--given that he’s been opposing almost everything Kylo’s suggested on principle, as if to test his limits. (They’re lightyears wide, when it comes to Hux, and even less than two standard weeks into Kylo’s reign, Hux is starting to know it.) 

But this time, the catastrophic outcome of showing off over D’Qar must have stuck with him: he was content with an  _ Upsilon _ -class. It’s got guns, at least, and he said,  _ “looks less like a looming invasion.”  _

The Order isn’t at that point yet, and if all goes well over the next few days of meetings, it will never have to be.

However, foregoing the  _ Finalizer  _ not only improves optics, but forces Hux and Kylo to accept yet more Rylothian hospitality.

That hospitality here means a two-bedroom executive suite in the guest wing of the chancellor’s own palace, chiseled high into Lessu’s Seventh Level. 

The window from the common room linking the bed chambers allows an impressive view of the sprawl of red mesas beyond the city walls, kilometers upon kilometers of barren chaparral and swirling dust.

The winter sun has sunk low over the desert by now, stabbing a last yellow finger into the parlor. Soon, though, it’ll disappear entirely, replaced by the near-total darkness that the locals believe wakes the spirits of their dead. 

It’s bullshit, of course. If the Living Force could be manipulated by something so common--so  _ calculable _ \--as lunar phases, then, well. The galaxy would be considerably more fucked.

But it isn’t like Kylo can’t sense it, either. 

Not from the moons--not like on a marine planet like Mon Cala, where he can feel the tide in his bloodstream--but rather from the city’s aura. A collective sense of somberness permeates the very air. It isn’t exactly grief--nothing so untamed--but it’s quieter, more permanent. 

Resurrected, it seems like, in identical form every cycle. That alone is unnerving. More than enough to find its way under Kylo’s skin and  _ settle.  _ A kind of sediment it’s hard to ignore.

It won’t be any easier, of course, after dark.

And sleep? That’s been a fucking laser trap since Starkiller--but it’ll be out of the question tonight.

Which is fine. Kylo can do without it. Has. The Force will sustain him. 

The Force always--

“I suppose that went about as well as could be expected.” Hux’s voice shatters Kylo’s thoughts. Kylo gives him the beat it always takes. “Supreme Leader.” 

There. Kylo wishes he could mind that the title is an afterthought. He turns to face Hux, putting his back to the view. 

As if Hux isn’t one.

He’s shed the greatcoat he made sure to keep on during the meeting with Drelomon, his standard fatigues openly hugging the dips and angles of his slight frame. He looks stark and small against the white marble of the walls.

The sunlight refracts off a low, glass-topped table, throwing a white prism onto the ceiling. More importantly, it catches the copper of Hux’s hair. Nothing, though, could warm the cold professionalism in his eyes.

Kylo nods his greeting, and can’t help taking a step toward him. He gestures to the low couches on either side of the glass table. “Drelomon felt resigned when we left. Not happy about any of this, but he’s savvy enough to know he’s cornered.” 

“That’s acceptable,” Hux returns, settling onto the sofa opposite Kylo and crossing his legs. His right foot immediately starts bouncing. “At least he’s no fool.”

“No,” Kylo agrees. “But I don’t know about his business council. I think they have the power to tie his hands.”

Hux hums at that, looks past Kylo to the window. “So would the business council grant us an audience?”

It’s the kind of good idea he now pays Hux for. “I’m sure they could be convinced to let you have a word.”

“You wouldn’t intend to speak yourself?” Hux’s brows scrunch, and his gaze returns to Kylo’s face.

“That’s what you’re for.”

“I--” Hux starts. Processes. Reconfigures. “Thank you. But a word from the Supreme Leader wouldn’t be amiss. You can be quite... Persuasive.”

“You’d really want me to use the Force on a room full of minds?” 

They’ve had this argument--in its various iterations--far too often. But Hux is the first to advocate that such a tactic, at least in a crowd setting, provides at best a temporary solution, if not a reason for future animosity. 

Not to mention the unspoken  _ if _ . The approach is so untenable, Kylo’s never attempted mind control on that scale.

“No,” Hux responds, too quickly, and  _ shit.  _ A pretty flush is spreading across his cheeks. “I didn’t mean… I. Wasn’t talking about the Force.”

Kylo hardly registers the words. He hasn’t seen Hux color like that in a year. It’s enticingly easy to imagine it creeping down past his collar, darkening his pale, thin chest. Kylo’s missed it like hell, that flash of vulnerability. The chink in Hux’s own mask, though the mask isn’t half bad.

That’s always been the problem with Hux. He’s too much: adorably endearing when flustered, delicately beautiful when naked, mind-blowingly sexy when together and focused and  _ on _ . (And a stubborn jackass too, but that’s part of the appeal.)

And somehow, he’d wanted  _ Kylo _ . Once upon a time.

And then Kylo fucked it up. 

As he does.

(Two weeks ago, though, above Crait and then on it, has to be his costliest mistake yet.)

Hux is blinking at his boots, red as the border of the insignia on his sleeve. Waiting.

“Hux, it’s--” Kylo starts, but fortunately whatever preventive word salad was going to come out instead of  _ please I want to kiss you  _ is cut off by the chime of the in-room comm.

Kylo leans across the table to answer it, and the chancellor’s narrow, scrupulous face materializes over the projector lens.

“Supreme Leader, General.”

“Greetings, Chancellor,” Hux says.  _ That deliberation didn’t take long _ , is written across his face, but he’s  _ Hux _ , and has the composure not to say so.

Kylo nods his acknowledgment, and Drelomon forges ahead.

“On behalf of the cabinet and the business council, I wanted to extend to you both an invitation to our annual memorial ceremony after sunset.”

Yet more Twi’lek hospitality. It’s a frankly excellent sign.

Kylo knows better than to interrupt now, and Drelomon keeps talking.

“We understand that the First Order is mourning the loss of its former Supreme Leader. We hope you might allow us to express our condolences in this way.”

_ Fuck. _

All of Kylo’s thoughts fade to incoherent static. 

It isn’t like they  _ know _ . There’s no reason the Rey story wouldn’t hold. 

But it isn’t about the story.

No one even said Snoke’s name, and the phantom pain of Kylo’s broken bond to him still whites out any emotion but fear, anger. Guilt.

His dreams lately have been of nothing but lightning under his skin. He wakes up to the ghost of fists, of bruises and blood, and that particular flayed feeling when another has made his way to the core of your mind. Like a fingernail bent too far backward, exposing live skin.

It was okay to end that, it was  _ natural  _ to end that, it was—

“We would be honored to attend, Chancellor,” Hux is saying, gaze slanted minutely, quizzically, toward Kylo.

Kylo’s blinking like he’s gone from space to daylight. Before he can override Hux with a diplomatic declination, Drelomon’s promising to send written details via secure messaging. Then he’s disappeared.

“What?” Hux asks, sharp, as soon as the comm winks out.

Kylo’s apparently been gripping the edge of the table. He lets go of it with effort. “I wasn’t aware you were inclined to mourn Snoke.”

An unnamable emotion flickers across Hux’s face. “No more than you are, I’m certain,” he says, after a moment. “But this is the kind of overture that we can’t afford to spurn.”

“It doesn’t matter. We already have them pinned.”

Hux inclines his head. “Yes, but I’d much prefer to be on polite terms.”

“Not if I have to listen to—“ Kylo breaks off, curls a fist on the armrest. 

He’d edited Hux’s face-saving eulogy down to a two-sentence personnel change announcement. There’s no need for this bullshit, but Hux is acting like it’s not remotely significant. 

It isn’t just about the memories. It isn’t. Looking back like this undermines Kylo’s own position. Nothing about Snoke—or anyone or anything—is better in retrospective. 

Hux is examining his datapad. “It’s supposed to be just half an hour long.”

“You don’t understand,” Kylo returns, more heated than he intends. “About him and me.”

Hux’s head snaps up, and there’s a thermal spark in his eyes, for a moment. His voice emerges soft by comparison. “You know damn well I do.”

He doesn’t, of course, never could, but Kylo can’t argue without bringing up the facts they both regret: bacta, warm on Hux’s cool hands, over cuts and burns and mangled skin; the flutter of worry under Hux’s tone, and the treasonous notion:  _ I don’t know why you tolerate this. _

Kylo drags his boot across the stone floor. “It used to piss you off.”

Kylo can sense it on Hux’s tongue, hanging between them like thunderstorm humidity, smothering:  _ Perhaps it shouldn’t have. _

But “yes, Supreme Leader,” is all he says, before standing. 

He heads toward the door to his own suite with a dip of his head and the exaggerated poise Kylo used to love to watch shatter. That’s much harder to want, though, now that he sees it for the armor it is.

“They expect us in an hour,” Hux appends over his shoulder, paused in the open doorway. “Sir. I trust you’ll be alright.”

It’s the insinuation of weakness that pulls Kylo to his feet.

“Dismissed, General,” he says, before Hux is entirely gone.

* * *

Ryloth’s first moon has risen by the time the ceremony begins, a dim white sliver like a fingernail clipping above the palace’s skylight. It and the distant constellations do little to brighten the cavernous audience chamber in use for the occasion. 

The room is all dun gray stone and flying buttresses, illuminated only by a perimeter of candlesticks and stands. Tall candelabras light the way, slim tapers blaze in boxes of sand, and low votives demarcate the seating area in the center of the floor. 

Upon entering, Hux had dipped his head to breathe into his tunic’s high collar, muttering something about  _ proper ventilation _ that Kylo hadn’t quite caught, but had snorted at nonetheless. 

_ If you’re so unimpressed,  _ Kylo had almost returned,  _ why did you insist we come?  _ But the total silence of the room had sapped him of any attempt to respond. 

A black-clad Drelomon had nodded them to the front row, where he and his family are seated on the ground, as per the apparent custom, and Hux had straightened his collar once seated, the picture of minimum politeness.

A votive flickers next to Kylo now, the tiniest whisper in the quiet room. It casts undulating shadows over his folded legs, catches bright on the leather of his boots, and throws into sharp definition the angle of Hux’s bony knee, mere centimeters from Kylo’s. 

It must be the narrow strip of light that makes his thigh look so much smaller, slimmer, beneath the wide-legged jodhpurs. But even under normal circumstances, Kylo’s hand would all but engulf it. Does engulf it. _Did_. 

There’s a part of Kylo that knows he should avoid looking at Hux in profile, by candlelight, but there’s another part that argues he should get used to the sight of Hux as something he can’t have. Should look as often as possible and remind himself he’s never again allowed to touch. 

So he does, or tries to, during the ceremony’s opening prayers and the lighting of incense sticks. 

Kylo can’t let himself stare, but a series of glances captures Hux feature by feature, as if cataloguing each one separately: the soft chin and softer lips, the sideburns, and the cheekbones that the dim light only casts sharper. The slightest scrunch of his nose at the pungent aroma of  _ naal.  _ The purple shadows that linger under his eyes.

His back is straight, his gloved hands folded, resting on his crossed ankles. For now. It shouldn’t take long before he starts fidgeting with his bootlaces, casually disinterested and unused to  _ stillness. _

Not that Kylo is, either.

He should be taking the opportunity of sitting lotus style in a quiet room to meditate, or at least attempt it, but between Hux’s sheer  _ presence  _ and the occupational instinct to stay vigilant during an alien ritual on a strange planet, there’s no way that’s happening.

Whatever. There’s almost plenty to think about besides Hux.

Everyone in the room is chanting low, in the harmonious Twi’leki language, as a procession of what must be some kind of clergy file into the room from an external wing. Each one of them is in dark robes like Drelomon’s, if of a lighter, almost diaphanous fabric that catches the candlelight. They weave through the candlesticks in front of the rows of attendees, each either lighting a candle of their own or picking up a censer.

The scent of  _ naal _ grows heavier on the air, pungent and sickly sweet. It stings Kylo’s eyes with each silent shake of the censer, timed with the rhythm of the chant. 

All of it feels less than real somehow, and Kylo’s thoughts keep coming slow, as if filtered through wet wool. Or they stop altogether, disintegrating into the tide of sensations.

He blinks, more against the smell than anything, but to no avail. He needs to focus, remain alert. They aren’t yet on friendly ground. He pinches the fabric of his leggings, just for something to ground him, twists it around his finger.

“What are they saying?” Hux’s hissed question pulls him all the way back.

Kylo turns toward Hux just in time to see him tilt his head away for the benefit of any onlookers.

“What?” he returns, all but directly into Hux’s ear.

Sure, Ben knew a few polite phrases of Twi’leki, but Kylo made a point not to use them at the meeting earlier. All he can pick out is a few articles, and the repeated first-person plural.

“The language.” Hux’s breath is hot on his cheek. “I hoped you might be familiar.”

“What do I look like, a protocol--”

Kylo stops short as the chant abruptly ends, snapping his mouth shut, spine straightening on reflex as silence falls. In his periphery, Hux’s lips twitch, thin, then resume an exaggeratedly straight line. 

Thatt shouldn’t hurt. (It shouldn’t feel like a ghost of its own.)

Thankfully, one of the priests-- headtails bound with gold--steps forward, clearing his throat. To improve matters, he switches to Basic.

“We are gathered here on this, Ryloth’s longest night, not to lament, but to remember. Likewise, we do not summon those who have passed before us, but rather open ourselves to the Force, which they have joined, as we seek peace despite our sorrow.”

Fantastic. 

The whole brief speech--the whole place, really, now that Kylo  _ opens himself _ \--reeks of Light. The same sheer passivity that apparently defines the planet’s foreign policy. It’s weakness, or it would be, if the Light would just not--

“...welcome our esteemed guests, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren and General Armitage Hux.” 

Kylo engages soon enough to incline his head politely. “You honor us.”

It feels wrong, the way the priest is looking down at them.

“We will later commemorate your fallen Leader Snoke, Supreme Leader, for your sake.”

“Great.”

Hux coughs beside him. Loudy. Kylo doesn’t dare risk a glance at him or his poorly concealed smirk.

He keeps his gaze forward as the priests start reading a list of names--surely not everyone who died on the entire planet in the past solar cycle, definitely not--and the chants from the attendees swell to a low, monotone murmur again.

The votive beside Kylo flickers, the pool of melted wax around the wick creeping toward the edge of the dish it’s on. The list appears to follow aurebesh alphabetization; they’ve gotten to  _ dorn. _

A stutter of motion to Kylo’s right draws his attention before he can think better of staring: Hux’s hand, stretching absently toward his bootlace. But he seems to think better of it--snatches his hand back, and laces his fingers on top of his crossed ankles again. Only then does he glance at Kylo, with the slightest quirk of his eyebrow.

Kylo can hardly focus on anything but Hux’s hands. They’re slim even gloved, and it doesn’t help that he knows how the leather tastes. 

He could reach out and grab one of them. He could. No one in the galaxy could stop him anymore, not even Hux, for all he’d hate it.

But isn’t that the bitch of all this. With Snoke gone, things should be perfect--no one to hide from, no wedges thrown between them or higher authority to placate.  _ Just us. _

And none of it matters, because Kylo did the unforgivable.

(He’s done it before, yeah, but with Hux, it’s the first time forgiveness has had any appeal.)

And it doesn’t matter that Hux’s mouth is by his ear at the  _ leth  _ names, hissing,  _ “When they said ‘the longest night…’”  _ like he has somewhere to be.

The names bleed into each other, and Hux’s fingers eventually find their way to his laces. He curls the ends around his knuckles, ties and unties with one hand. He’s never idle. The firelight catches in the leather of his gloves. 

It’s mesmerizing, in the way Hux always has been, no matter how caustic or rigid or truculent he is at the moment. 

It’s with a start that Kylo realizes the reading has ended, and according to the priest, “Traditional dirges will now be sung for those of the fallen closest to you before us.”

Kylo bites his lip, steeling himself for whatever bantha shit they’re going to offer up about Snoke. They have no idea. Nobody but Hux has any fucking idea.

The clergy shake the censers again, and Hux coughs lightly. He needs to be taken out of here. Probably. Maybe. Bad for Hux’s lungs, worse for Kylo’s brain.

Kylo splays his hand across his own knee, stretching until the seams of the glove strain. This will be fine.

The singing starts up, low and mournful, echoing amid the room’s arches and buttresses. Through the skylight, three dim new moons are now visible: two white-yellow, the third faintly pink.

The first song generically extols the virtues of a tenured planetary senator, verses alternating between Basic and Twi’leki. The departed was good, the departed was faithful and noble and courageous and kind, the departed is now at peace. He is commended to the keeping of the Force. So be it.

“So be it,” the assembly parrots.

After what must be a meditative beat--Drelomon and his family bow their heads--the cantor states the name alone, crisp and decisive: “Supreme Leader Snoke.”

It’s the same paean, but none of it’s remotely true. 

That’s inoffensive-it’s a standard hymn--but it lasts too long and fully inhabits its minor key. Kylo’s thoughts wander every time they repeat the name, and last week’s lightning burns his nerves like a ghost’s touch.

_ The will of the Force gave to us _

_ A life of honor _

_ A life of service _

It’s all shit, really. But the lyrics aren’t the problem. 

Kylo clenches his eyes shut for a moment, so tightly he can feel his forehead scrunch, squeezes his hand on his knee until the joints go taut. He needs distraction, an alternate point of focus, but his shoulder still doesn’t feel right, and his mind won’t stop.

He opens his eyes again, and it isn’t any fucking better. The song hits a high note, reverbs off the ceiling, skull-splitting; then descrescendos.

This is stupid. He defeated Snoke. He  _ outmaneuvered  _ him. Nothing Snoke ever told him about himself or inflicted on him ever matters again. He won. He acted.

_ Only because you were afraid. _

No. He needed to assume the throne. He needed to follow his actual fucking destiny, he wasn’t--

_ (When he gets what he wants, he’ll-- _

“I suppose it rhymes in Twi’leki.” Hux’s breath is warm on his cheek again.

Kylo blinks, cuts his gaze at Hux. The color of his eyes is even more ambiguous by this lighting. 

“I told you,” he hisses back. “I don’t know.”

Hux pops his lips. Probably at the unintended sharpness, which has apparently become Kylo’s fucking modus operandi. Well. Has been, for years, but he should do better. Be better. But he’s  _ unbalancedconflictedpatheticemotionalself-defeatinglukewarmworthless-- _

_ (You know it’s true.) _

This whole room is oozing Light, even when they’re singing about one of the most massive nodes of Darkness the galaxy has ever known, and it’s worse than any half-healed wound.

He doesn’t need to think of Starkiller. Of the bridge. (Solo’s touch hurt deeper than any of Snoke’s.)

It’s too late to focus.

* * *

“We’re getting out of here.” 

Less than an hour later, Kylo’s stopp _ e _ d in Hux’s doorway, one hand gripping the frame. It’s all he can do to keep it from shaking. To keep himself standing.

The end of the Snoke tribute hadn’t improved matters. 

The five hymns that followed it only amplified the Light, until the memories, the false sensations, the echoes and shadows of Ben and Ben’s family, of Snoke and what Kylo’s been told, were pounding against his skull, only exacerbated by the reek of incense and racket of the music. 

He popped two symoxin tabs for the headache as soon as he got back to his suite, but still feels haunted. 

Hux has turned from his coat rack to look at him. “I’m sorry?”

One more second on this planet, and Kylo’s all but certain his skull will split, ribs spreadeagle. It’s like the rumblings of some great tectonic shift, the ache and pressure under his skin.

The  _ Upsilon _ -class is in a rooftop hangar just three storeys up. It’s well-fueled, adequately stocked. Barely a parsec from the  _ Finalizer _ , they’ll be home after the briefest possible hyperspace interlude.

There’s no time to waste. 

“We’re leaving,” Kylo repeats. “I’m about to send a notification to the staff. Lift off at oh five hundred.”

“What are you talking about?” The beat. “Supreme Leader. They still have four more days to decide on the tribute, and we have defense and security meetings tomorrow. We intended to stay until—“

“No need.” Kylo detaches himself from the doorframe, steps forward into the room. “They’ll pay up, or they’ll suffer the consequences next week. We’ve been clear about our terms. The extra glad-handing isn’t necessary.”

Hux thins his lips and glances briefly down, as a gust of wind blows into the room through the open window. The pane opens inward, thuds harshly against the wall with the force of the breeze. 

The cleaning droids must have opened them while Hux was out. That’s also customary. Allows the spirits to roam at will.

Hux shoots it a murderous look and chafes his arms, before turning the same sparking gaze on Kylo. “Worlds need to get the impression that they matter to us. We can’t cut short diplomatic engagements on a whim, and we certainly can’t rescind pressure on tribute demands.”

“If they take the fact that we’re leaving to mean we’re bluffing, we’ll just enact the blockade.” Kylo steps closer to him, shuts the door behind him with a flick of his wrist. “They’ll come around.”

“Never mind that the blockade--while feasible--will strain the very budget we’re trying to supplement,” Hux scoffs. His gloves are off, but even his bare hands revert to parade rest. Which is a shame, given that it means Kylo can’t  _ look at them.  _

That used to be the only appealing part about arguing with this particular stubborn asshole. Getting to watch him get worked up, flushed banner-red, fine hands gesticulating wildly. And then of course, they’d bang it out. 

Kylo’s under no such illusions now. He needs to win, not drag this along. (Even if it means returning to his own cold suite to pace the floor and read reports until the night wears away.)

“If you’re so worried about the budget, you can’t justify a waste of time and resources like this mission,” he returns. “We need to focus on tracking the Resistance, not bullshit diplomacy or—“

“ _ Resources,”  _ Hux interrupts, matching his step forward, “are precisely what we need. Our goal is expansion, which the Resistance is powerless to prevent.”

“No.” Frustration--or something like it--curls in the pit of Kylo’s stomach, for a welcome change. They’re close enough now that he can pick out the freckles at the corners of Hux’s eyes. “The Resistance is the one obstacle in our way. Eliminate them, and the galaxy falls. These little taxes and tributes are inconsequential.”

“So how else do you intend to pay for the fleet?” Hux damn near  _ sneers.  _ He’s being intentionally obtuse. He should know better than to test Kylo, now, but. Old habits, maybe.

Whatever. This can be a game for two. 

“We already have a fleet,” Kylo drawls. “Last I checked.”

The window pane smacks the wall again, peters out in a series of diminishing taps. The frigid wind teases even Hux’s hair, and raises goosebumps under Kylo’s tunic.

Hux appears maddeningly unaffected by the cold, but his tone grows tighter. “We have half a fleet, Supreme Leader.” 

“And it’s more than enough to obliterate an antique freighter full of terrorists.“

“The other half was fucking  _ vaporized  _ by those same terrorists!” Hux’s arms drop abruptly out of parade rest, and he colors slightly.  _ (Shit.) _

The tension in the pit of Kylo’s stomach drops warm below his waist. He ignores it in favor of his point. “So we vaporize them in turn.”

“Which I would fully support had you or any of the intelligence services produced one  _ single _ concrete lead as to their location.” 

“And we never will without the pivot I’m trying to order!”

Hux pops his lips, leans just slightly further into Kylo’s space, putting his chest mere centimeters from Kylo’s. “Your pivot is not what we need. What we need is resources and reconstruction, and most importantly, footholds and partnerships like this one.” 

He’s quoting his own damn bullshit. “Did you really just use the word  _ partnership _ ?”

The window slaps the wall again, metal frame noisy against the wall’s limestone. Outside, stars glitter above the mesas, nothing but darker blotches against the dark sky.

Hux looks away from it and back to Kylo. “I already told you we need good will. Or more properly, you do, here at the beginning of your…”  _ Reign  _ goes loudly unspoken. 

Hux is overthinking all of this, though.

“They’d be fools to deny us, no matter whether we broke off the visit.” Kylo softens his tone as much as possible. “They won’t fuck with the Starkiller.”

Hux’s lip twitches ( _ score _ ), but he quickly recovers. “That isn’t the point. They aren’t openly hostile. We need to think strategically at this point, which means gaining their trust.”

“Then you stay.” It’s out before Kylo’s fully contemplated, but as soon as it emerges, it makes more sense than anything else.

“The itinerary clearly promises—“

“Cover for me.” You stay and shake hands and win hearts. I can’t be here. Not anymore. I don’t need to be.”

Another gust of wind, another clatter.

“For fuck’s sake,” Hux mutters, then half-turns as if to stalk over to fix the window. 

Kylo steps to block his path, flinging his arm to let the Force shut it. A series of clicks, and the room already feels warmer.

Kylo does, too. Without the airflow, his clothes feel suddenly stifling, too much, too hot. It doesn’t help that they’re closer now, Kylo’s foot directly between Hux’s. Hux’s face is so close to Kylo’s own that everything but his crinkled nose looks out of focus.

“What do you mean, you  _ can’t _ ?” he says, voice unmistakably lower.

“Are you questioning a direct order?” Kylo returns.

“Of course not.” Hux sounds more clipped again, if breathy, impatient. “But am I not entitled to know if something’s wrong on this planet?”

“It’s nothing.” What does he think, Kylo’s just going to leave him in danger and set him up to fail? 

“Just,” Kylo continues, quieter. “I can’t be here. Not tonight.”

“What?” Hux’s brow furrows in frustration for the split second before realization brightens his face. Kylo can practically see his circuits lighting up. 

But the elation of victory, of  _ puzzle decrypted _ , is soon replaced by aggravation. The exasperated turn of the lip, flare of the nostrils. The  _ smirk. _

Hux huffs a small exhale, hot on Kylo’s chin. His lips are right there. “I’d quite forgotten you were afraid of ghosts.”

_ How the fuck could you forget? _

“I’m not afraid,” Kylo corrects, heated again. “There aren’t any ghosts. I just—“

But he stops dead as he presses inadvertently closer, the sudden friction of contact drying his mouth. He’s managed to slot his hips against Hux’s. Press against him line for line. Rub his immutable semi against Hux’s own swelling cock.

Hux won’t meet Kylo’s eyes, just keeps staring down at the symmetry of their tented trousers. 

“Fuck,” he says, overenunciating so the word sounds all consonants, the argument momentarily suspended by the present need.

Kylo follows his gaze down, and past it to their feet. Kylo’s own worn boots between Hux’s regulation socks. 

_ Fuck. _

Armitage Hux in his fucking sock feet. It’s been years. This pair is standard black, light gray over the toes. There’s a part of Kylo that could fall to his knees and kiss them.

Could sob  _ what can I do, is there anything I can do?  _ The answers, of course, are  _ nothing  _ and  _ no _ , but it doesn’t change that fact that Kylo  _ wants.  _ Always has. He can’t bring himself to step back, relieve the pressure, but Hux doesn’t either.

“Is that why you’re here?” he murmurs, and finally looks back up.

Kylo follows his gaze. “For this? No. I’m here giving orders.” He tries to swallow around the dryness in the back of his throat. “I won’t ask you for--”

Hux scoffs. Or tries to anyway, with his voice going rough and his pupils suddenly like black holes. “You sound  _ frightfully _ certain you want to spend tonight alone.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to.”

“So what are you proposing?” Hux leans impossibly closer, and Kylo balls his hands at his sides in an effort to keep from cupping his face, brushing his cheekbones like he’s something precious.

“Nothing.” Kylo wets his lips. “I told you I won’t ask you for this.”

_ For your body at my mercy, for your trust that I’ll touch you gently when I’m burning off the Force, for your naked skin and lifted mask and vulnerability.  _

Kylo doesn’t deserve--

“If you want to go,” Hux pulls back by the slightest margin, “then go.”

“I didn’t say I wanted to.”

“Very well.” Hux’s hand remain at his sides too, but he looks Kylo up and down, appraising. Finding wanting, no doubt. “I’m duty-bound to serve my Supreme Leader as he sees fit.”

If Kylo didn’t know better, it would sound flirtatious, or as close as Hux can get to it. 

“I don’t want you to serve me, I want--” Kylo stops short, but Hux’s gaze is expectant. Demanding. “You,” Kylo finishes, with as much dignity, as much possessiveness as he can muster. Asserts it, claims it, rather than confesses it.

In response, Hux does the wholly unexpected: closes the distance between them to palm Kylo’s cock. Blood rushes downward, and Kylo’s cock twitches under the contact. Hux’s lip quirks with something like satisfaction, and it’s all Kylo can do not to rut into his grip like a teenager, come panting against Hux’s shoulder like he has before.

Hux presses down with the heel of his hand. “Could you be more specific?”

“I’ll make it good for you.” Kylo can’t help it. He dips his head to mouth at Hux’s ear, which flushes crimson under his gaze, his mouth, Hux’s bright hair. He drags his teeth along the shell, and Hux squeezes his cock even as he shudders. 

“I’ll make it so good,” Kylo promises again.

The self-satisfied smirk that Kylo always wants to kiss off Hux’s face reappears. He releases Kylo’s cock only to stroke his thumb down the hardening line. “I should hope so.”

The four words sound like a lifeline, a fresh round in a training sim. The chance to show Hux he can still offer him something besides pain, and to clear his own mind while he’s at it. It’s more than he ever imagined, but Hux is lonely and Hux is tired and Hux is constantly probing for Kylo’s weaknesses. (Hux himself is one.)

More importantly, though, Hux is rock-hard through his jodhpurs, and still slightly breathless. Apparently Kylo’s at least superior to a business-like shower wank. (He’ll take what he can get.)

“Okay.” Kylo pulls away and sucks a breath through his teeth.  _ Focus.  _ Control. “You want me inside you.”  _ On top of you, pinning you down, you want  _ that?

Hux lifts his hand and drops his gaze, as if he were the telepath here. He looks back up before answering, though. “I’d like your cock, yes.”

There was a time when Kylo would have made him repeat it. Teased him as if he’d ever properly beg. He’s in no such position now, for all the request goes straight to his erection, now straining under his leggings.

“Are you prepped?” falls out of his mouth instead, decidedly the least sexy thing he could possibly come up with. Not that Hux was ever used to much better, but--

“No,” Hux replies, “not exactly, I... And it’s been some time.” It’s unlike him to cut himself off, to course-correct. 

Kylo manages to neither sigh in relief nor gloat at the admission. Who else Hux would have, he doesn’t know, but--  _ Mine _ , he can’t say.

“I can open you up,” he replies. “Or wait.” Only the latter part is a lie.

“I can’t,” Hux says, like it’s an intelligence highlight he’s briefing. Unbiased fact. 

But that doesn’t mean Kylo’s sure whether he means allowing the intimacy of the fingering, or simply bothering with anything else.

Not that it matters. Kylo  _ needs _ , with an urgency that the vulnerability of Hux’s discomfiture only bolsters.

Again, it’s out before Kylo can fully consider it: “Let me fuck your thighs.”

Hux blinks once at that, before the strongest flare of emotion Kylo’s felt from him in weeks. Desire. Warm, strong. Directed, somehow, toward Kylo himself, despite everything. ( _ Old habits, definitely _ .)

But Hux swallows, for all the pink flush is spreading high on his cheekbones, damning. “If you’d like,” he says, almost  _ almost  _ blase.

Kylo knows better. “You have lube?”

“Why would I pack--” Hux starts, but breaks off with a shake of his head. “I think there’s lotion in the ‘fresher.”

“Okay.”

Hux turns abruptly toward the ‘fresher without further direction. It’s impossible not to drink him in from behind: the curve of his ass under the peplum, his slim legs and high collar and reddened ears. How desperate for sex must he be to allow  _ Kylo  _ to do  _ this _ ?

It doesn’t matter. He won’t regret it. Probably. Hopefully.

Kylo sheds his boots first, then his belt and outer tunic, leaving shirtsleeves and suspenders underneath. He figures they’ll come off in phases.

Like in his own suite on the other side of the darkened common room, a double bed dominates the center of the room. Same white pillows, same patterned gray quilt. 

Kylo paces over to it and pulls the quilt off, baring soft white sheets. As he waits, the wind tosses sand and grit against the shut window, the faintest tattle.

Hux takes longer than it should to grab a bottle of lotion off the counter, but once he does come out, it’s clear that’s because. He undressed. 

He’s gorgeous, always has been, will be when he’s pension age (as if he’d take a pension or let Kylo touch him then). But after over a year since they’ve been fully naked together, it’s...better than seeing him for the first time. 

His slim waist and the dots of his nipples, his star-pale legs, the slight give of his soft stomach and his thick cock curling pink up toward it--he’s like some priceless artifact, lost by the ancients and rediscovered again, against all odds. 

(There’s a part of Kylo, too, that’s surprised not to see bruises.)

“Well?” Hux holds out a pump bottle of what looks like an unscented imported lotion.

Kylo’s pulse is thudding in his ears, cock pressing at his leggings. His hands are less than steady as he takes the lotion. “You want me to.”

Fucking him is one thing, touching him like  _ this _ is another.

Hux shrugs, an ambiguous expression flickering across his face. “If you’d rather I--”

“No.” Kylo wets his lips again, hardly aware of doing so. “No, sit down.”

Hux complies wordlessly, the mattress creaking just slightly under his weight. He looks up at Kylo and raises his eyebrows eloquently. 

It’s all too easy to kneel between his legs. (It’s less than easy not to completely collapse there.)

With the height of the bed, Hux’s cock is roughly at eye level--mouth level, really--once Kylo’s settled onto his knees. Long ago, he would have licked at it without hesitation. Swirled and lathed and sucked just enough to tease, to take the tension out of Hux’s spine, but now? An assertion like that might ruin everything.

Hux’s thighs, though. Those, he has permission for. 

He sets the lotion down between his knees and the bedframe, then wraps his hand around Hux’s slender calf for something to hold onto. The fine, light hairs there tickle his skin, and it’s all he can do not to kiss from there up. He has to focus, though, somehow, despite his aching cock and his racing pulse.

“Ren, what are you--” Hux starts as Kylo leans in, but stops entirely, breaking off into a short, sharp sigh somewhere in the back of his throat once Kylo’s lips meet his skin.

His skin is soft here, warm and alive and  _ vulnerable.  _ He tastes clean, and it’s. So much. Kylo lets himself linger on the first spot, not sucking or biting, just resting there for a moment, taking in the scent of him, the heat radiating from his groin. 

Somehow, Hux doesn’t get up, doesn’t yell stop. Doesn’t start jerking off into Kylo’s hair.

“Is that okay for you?” Kylo asks when he pulls up, meeting Hux’s eyes.

“I suppose,” he says, but his tone and his aura are far more interested. 

He’s bleeding want and lust and surprise and some kind of satisfaction at seeing Kylo here, in a pose that’s penitent, anyway. 

Kylo doesn’t correct the association. Can’t, and won’t ruin  _ now  _ with that conversation, not when Hux isn’t demanding it, would clearly rather have action than the prettiest words Kylo can drum up.

Besides, it would bring Kylo too far back into himself and his fuckups.

He breathes against Hux’s skin to clear his mind again, then slips his hand further up Hux’s leg, tracing the sharp inner angle of his knee to rest just above it, under his thigh. Hux has moved to the edge of the mattress for even easier access. Some of his tension is dissipating.

Hux’s thighs are beautiful, if less  _ pristine  _ up close. A few thicker veins run blue under his skin, so white on top that it’s all but translucent. A smattering of moles dot the insides. 

Kylo kisses a careful line as high as he can comfortably go, stroking the underside of Hux’s thigh where he’s holding it. He nuzzles at the highest point once he’s stopped, hoping the tip of his nose isn’t too cold.

“I thought you were going to lube me.” There’s no genuine complaint in Hux’ss voice, but the confusion is almost real.

“I am.”

Hux scoffs at that, too light to be meant rudely. “With saliva?”

“Sure.” Kylo pulls back and licks a long stripe up the inside of his leg for that. It’sregulation shower gel that he tastes of, which isn’t so bad, right now.

Kylo’s head is still down when there’s sudden pressure on his scalp--Hux’s long, slim fingers, stroking through his hair. Tugging just enough to set Kylo’s cock throbbing again.

_ Can I blow you?  _ a part of him is screaming.  _ Hell, can I lick your balls? _

It’s only the tattered remnants of his pride that stop him. He’ll ask for nothing but what he’s been offered. He has to draw a boundary somewhere.

He switches to the other leg, and starts similar treatment. He begins at the top here, though, kisses down toward Hux’s jutting kneecap. 

Hux’s fingers find their way quickly back into his hair, and Kylo looks up at a particularly sharp pull, halfway down the soft plane of Hux’s thigh. 

“What is this, Ren?” he murmurs.

“Is it okay?”

Hux combs his hair back, fingertips dragging along his scalp just so. It shoots sparks down Kylo’s spine. “Yes, but--”

“I missed your legs,” Kylo returns, shooting for shameless but landing somewhere around factual.

Hux hums for a moment. “Right then.”

Kylo isn’t sure what he was expecting (definitely not  _ I missed your  _ mouth _ , darling) _ , but the sheer puzzlement under Hux’s tone is more than enough. Hux always seems as surprised as Kylo feels to have his body appreciated (the difference being that Hux’s body actually deserves it).

Kylo presses his lips wetly down to Hux’s knee, then licks back up his inner thigh, punctuating with pecks. He plants a final kiss to the mole at the juncture of Hux’s right thigh before letting go long enough to pump some of the lotion into his hand. He rubs it a little bit, trying to warm it as best he can without spreading it equally on both palms. Then he grips Hux’s thigh with one hand and rubs the lotion high with the other.

His hands fit around it so easily, look calloused and monstrous and too rough on that delicate skin, but it must feel okay. Hux’s breathing is steady, even, and a glance upward shows his eyes are closed.

Kylo returns for a few more pumps before asking if that feels like enough. Hux just hums his response. Kylo moves to the other leg as efficiently as he can, but not without massaging the muscle for a moment, eliciting both a moan and a  _ get on with it _ from Hux.

“It won’t be as good as real lube,” Kylo says, as conversationally as possible, on the second layer on Hux’s right leg. 

“It’ll do,” Hux replies, breathy and unhurried. Precome has pearled on the crown of his cock, and it looks painfully dark.  _ Gorgeously  _ dark. Maybe he’ll be able to touch it once they’re in bed. Maybe.

Kylo hurries through the rest of the lubing at the notion, feeling the strain of his own erection with a new urgency.

“Feel okay?” he asks, rubbing his hands together to lessen the greasiness. He’ll have to undress soon, fresh scars and all.

“Adequate,” Hux replies, scooting carefully back onto the mattress with his legs pressed together. Sloppy stripes of white wrap onto the front of his thighs, that and the oily sheen of the lotion.

Kylo stands as Hux settles back against the pillows, not yet interested in turning on his side. “I need to…” he starts, shrugging off one suspender.

Hux is looking directly at him. “Go on then.”

Kylo could make it more of a performance, but he’s in too much of a hurry for that. He’s quickly out of suspenders, shirtsleeves, and leggings. Hux shouldn’t mind the heap in the floor, but he doesn’t even seem to be considering it, given the way he’s focused on the particular faultlines of Kylo’s bowcaster scar, low on his ribcage, and the way he’s been idly stroking his cock.

Kylo holds his gaze for what he hopes is a coquettish moment before slipping out of the briefs and freeing his cock. It immediately curves to full, swollen hardness, drawing Hux’s attention from the blemish entirely.

“Well?” Kylo lingers for a moment before bending for the lotion. 

Hux’s lip twitches inscrutably, but he nods. “Still alright,” he seems to allow.

Kylo knows from experience: It’s the most he can expect before Hux is halfway to his climax.

He sinks onto the bed beside Hux to lube himself, leaning against the pillows with his knees bent. His bare thigh looks massive, unnatural, next to Hux’s slim one, but Hux reaches out, inexplicably, to squeeze it. His fingers span more of it than Kylo remembers.

The lotion still feels oily on Kylo’s fingers, if somewhat less viscous rubbed in with his precome. He rubs his slick hand on the sheet, finds the tremor’s returned, in keeping with his throbbing cock.

On a whim, he takes Hux’s wrist, presses his lips to the inside, and looks up to meet Hux’s eyes as Hux shudders. 

“Roll over for me?” Kylo murmurs.

“Of course.” 

Hux tugs a pillow horizontal and lies down on his side. He’s not curled much inward--unlike how he usually sleeps--but the knobs of his spine are still visible in the middle, though grow shallower before reaching his ass. Which Kylo isn’t here for, not exactly, but draws the eye nonetheless.

“Coming down?” Hux asks after a moment, only partially muffled by the pillow.

“Just looking.” 

Hux snorts. “Naturally.”

Kylo risks a hand down Hux’s upper arm, all light freckles and lean muscle. Hux leans so easily into it that it’s hard to stop.

He grabs his own pillow, though, and rolls onto his side. It’s a bit awkward, curling around Hux when they’re both somewhat sticky. (And when Kylo’s looking at the jut of his ribs and breathing the scent of his neck.)

“Tell me when,” he murmurs, then purses his lips to keep from kissing the inviting slope of Hux’s neck. He can’t imagine touching there, of all places, where Hux must have applied bacta to abrasions far too recently.

His hair still smells amazing, though, the imported herbal product he uses.  _ Something selfish _ , he’d once explained, a post-commission indulgence that had simply stuck.

“Now,” he says, all but immediately. “Fuck me, I--”

Kylo cuts him off, slipping a hand between his thighs to part them. “I need it.”

His cock slides easily between Hux’s legs, high enough to brush his tight balls. It’s-- a lot, Hux’s slim back pressed flush against Kylo’s chest, Kylo’s nose buried in Hux’s neck. Somehow, he doesn’t flinch back at the contact. Any of it.

Hux’s breathing is audible--sharp, rough. “Fuck me,” he repeats, though his voice sounds splintered.

Kylo rocks his hips, less a full thrust than a test for range of motion. He wraps his right hand around Hux’s bony hip, slides his left underneath him to hold the other in place. “Tell me if it’s too much.”

“No such thing,” he returns, like he would have years ago, when Kylo learned to take it as a challenge. He still does.

The first few thrusts are sloppy--it’s been a year since they’ve done anything, even longer since  _ this. _ A rhythm comes easily, though, between the ebb of Hux’s breathing and the perfect slide of Kylo’s cock between his slick legs. He’s even warmer there now.

“You feel incredible,” Kylo breathes against his ear. “It’s been too long.”

“And whose fault--ah,” Hux returns. “--is that.” Decidedly not a question.

Kylo thrusts more roughly in response, pushing past his balls and brushing the sheet on the other side. and Hux moans, a soft keening sound in the back of his throat. “You can be louder than that.”

“Not here.”

Kylo hums as he pulls back, slow, almost languid. “What will they do, throws us out?”

Hux’s scoff splinters into a sharp gasp as Kylo pushes in. “Is that what you’ve been planning?”

“Maybe.” Kylo mouths at the hot skin of his ear. “Will it work?”

“Don’t count on it, Supreme Leader.”

The title should sting a bit, when Kylo’s wrapped around him, but there’s something so light, so unmistakably  _ mocking  _ in it, that it’s fine. (Where on the bridge it should get under Kylo’s skin and fester.)

He thrusts in again, rough as before, but only elicits the same sharp little noises and increasingly staccato exhales. 

“You’re touching yourself.” Kylo presses a kiss to his shoulder, breathy himself. 

“Of course.”

Kylo nearly offers the Force--Hux has allowed it before--but it’s all too soon for that, now. At any rate, he’s radiant in the Force, his presence pulsing with a solar flare of pleasure.

“You’re close.” Kylo presses in slower this time, deliberate, dragging it out, enjoying the give of his skin. 

Kylo is too, cock heavy, aching, leaking freely onto the sheets and onto Hux.

“You’d know,” Hux returns, shaky.

“Can I get you off?”

“You are getting me off.”

“No, I want--” Kylo’s breath hitches on the next thrust, vision graying at the edges. “I want to feel it. Want to see it. Not when I-- Not when--”

_ Fuck.  _ He bites his lip. Controls it. It’ll be better, the longer he waits. He needs to focus on Hux, he needs--

Hux rolls over as soon as Kylo pulls back, flushed all the way down his neck, hair sticking sweaty to his forehead, ribs heaving. Precome drips down the side of his cock, jutting out from his tidy pubes, above his reddened thighs. 

“You look gorgeous.” Kylo blames his approaching orgasm.

Hux smiles shakily. “I don’t.”

“Trust me.” Kylo reaches for his cock, and his fingers wrap easily around it. He drags his thumb up the underside, teasing at the wet slit.

Hux’s breath hitches. “Wait.” He turns onto his side again, this time facing Kylo, and wraps a hand around his cock as Kylo repositions his own.

“You don’t have to--” Kylo breathes, but he’s already rutting into Hux’s warm grip, transfixed by the curve of Hux’s fingers around his swollen cock.

Hux strokes him once, tightly, thumb massaging the sensitive area under his foreskin, and he feels it at the base of his spine.

“Fuck--” He barely manages to stroke Hux before spilling hot into his grip, keeps up the movement feebly as his orgasm pulses through him, graying his vision.

Hux’s presence spikes with pleasure the instant before he comes, like a single sharp chord that cuts through Kylo, mingling with his own pleasure, enhancing it. He gives what he can back to Hux, as much as Hux can take, and Hux cries out, bright, immutable, his release leaking between Kylo’s knuckles as his orgasm wracks his body.

Kylo holds him through it, returning to himself amid the post-coital haze and the Force-high still buzzing through his brain--one hand around Hux’s cock, the other on his shoulder. When Hux finishes, his cheeks are wet, and his chest is still heaving.

He rolls onto his back again after a moment, and Kylo does the same, staying close enough that their shoulders are pressed together. That Kylo can take his hand, sticky as it is. He curls his fingers through Hux’s, draws them both to his lips, and kisses the back of Hux’s hand.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, lips brushing the ridge of his knuckle, the soft skin pulled tight over it.

“Always.”

There’s nothing to say to that, nothing that doesn’t sound either glib or pathetic, but Kylo doesn’t let go of his hand. He stares at the ceiling for a few long minutes, takes in the rhythm of Hux’s slowing breathing. Can’t quite ignore the grit hitting the window.

Kylo’s eyelids have begun to droop, abstracts patterns dancing behind them, when Hux’s voice is the sensation of falling, jolting him back to something more like full alertness.

“It’s oh two-thirty. We’ll need to prepare for muster soon to make the oh five hundred departure.”

Fuck. 

Right.

It’s the longest night, and dawn is still far off, but it could be worse. 

For all his hand is tacky with drying come, Hux is pressed against his side, breathing gently. And the Force--for the moment, at least--is nothing but a soft, pleasant blur on the margin of his consciousness.

“Or we could stay right here,” he says. _ Concedes _ . “Get up in time for the meetings.”

“Clever thinking,” Hux murmurs, and slings an arm across Kylo’s ribs.

Kylo wraps around him in return, splaying a hand across his back and pulling him close. They’ll talk tomorrow. Or sometime. Or never. Not that it matters right now.

It’s the longest night, and dawn is still far off, but the ghosts couldn’t feel more distant.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've read _Resistance Reborn_ , you'll recognize Drelomon, the Longest Night (as a concept, anyway), and the First Order's demands on Ryloth. This fic takes place before the Resistance presence south of Lessu is betrayed to the FO, so it's up to you whether that has an impact on Kylo's disturbance in the Force here...
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/imperialhuxness)


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